1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to electrical lighting, and more specifically to fluorescent lamp fixtures.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The increasing popularity of fluorescent lamps has spawned a number of variations in lamp wattages, physical lengths and the number of lamps combined in a fixture. Such variety allows consumers to use fluorescent lamps in a wide array of applications.
However, such variations on the basic lamp fixture increase manufacturing cost and complexity. For example, in compact fluorescent recessed fixtures, nine, thirteen, eighteen and twenty-six watt lamps are universally employed and are the usual choices. The lamp configuration can be either twin tube or quad tube for the nine and thirteen watt types, while the eighteen and twenty-six watt types are in quad format only. Each lamp type has its own socket type, thus there are at least six socket variants. Ballasts to power such lamps are specific to each lamp wattage, each lamp type, each supply line voltage and each power factor format, e.g., high or low power factor. Thus the number of ballast variants exceeds twenty. Each fixture requires a reflector for the lamp, and each reflector is specific to the lamp wattage, lamp type and optical performance required. In one series, there may be three height variations and two variations in diameter, yielding six unique reflectors.
From a manufacturing perspective, it would be ideal if the items that vary the most could be isolated into modules, so that there would be a minimum of parts necessary and so assembly could be simplified. Otherwise, many fixture variations would have to be stocked by manufacturers in their final, unique configurations.